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Still flawed, but its a great deal more useful. It has to be asked, how come it's a different manual?

Woeful as in not needed, overly long, complicated and not useful.

COIN is not a distinct form or warfare. Fighting an insurgency requires the application of military force. How that force is...

I'd see that 100% in reverse. 3-24 is a "COIN" manual, and that is why it is a woeful publication. It views COIN as a distinct form of military/non-military activity. That is rubbish.
An Irregular...

Can't quite follow the idea here. My position is that conflicts are cause by politics. Politics is indivisible from religion, ideology or ideas. All wars are wars of "ideas". The differentiation is...

Politics is power over people. Functionally that is the aim of religion. All religion is based in ideology. - Ideas. Ideas as to the right and wrong way for peoples and societies to conduct...

Maybe the form is similar but criminals are subject to the criminal justice system. War is generally something exempt from that. You can only have effective criminal justice, when you actual physical...

What's the difference between ideology and religion and politics and the relationship between a populace and its government? These are all exactly the same thing.

Well it takes a good deal of skill to do well, but I concur.

True but irrelevant. They can complain all they like once they give up their guns. Until they do that, political resolution is...

Mazal Tov. Salams etc.

....and no one should expect you to. Very few doctors read medical journals, on a regular basis, if at all. I have no quibble with the pure professional who just wants to do...

Sorry Bob. I don't understand. COIN is a commonly written about subject. Moreover, it was well understood until recently.

I'm not talking about "Nation building." I am talking about defeating...

What about Paret, Kitson, Samay Ram, Charters, Tugwell and O'Neil to name just a few of the authors on my COIN shelf?

It's his "original ideas" that I think are mostly wrong. The "Complex" and "Globalisation" stuff is mostly not good.

Dave Kilcullen cannot tell you because he can't tell the future. Neither can...

Like MikeF, this is where I part company with Dave. Without specific context, this is a slippery slope. If you do not want military operations to adversely effect the population, do not conduct them....

Amen. Nice guy as well, but having been a fan of his Infantry writing, I have come to disagree a lot with what he writes about COIN or what folks ascribe to him.
BUT:-

...and so what? Every one...

a.) I'm not ever actually going to use the term "crushing rebellion."

b.) If the populace has resorted to violence to protest then I'm going to force them to give up violence. - and that is not to...

If it breaks will it works

I'm all for working with the chaos, but that does not mean accepting things as just being just the way things are because people are too stupid or lazy to change....

Eaxctly! So we do not have to make up silly new words. I am very happy with "Crushing Rebellion."

...and the best way to prevent this is..... dialogue or armed force?

Why - when we all know...

"It was announced today that Brigadier Ken Odom-White has relieved Col Archibald Snuffy of his command for being terminally stupid......"

Like I said "competent army," who do not go around...

OK, I can dig that. Learning is rarely counter-productive, but why the dialogue during the military operations? A competent military knows who to kill and why. I don't think they can really seek...

For sure. That's THE point! Force is the journey, (-ways and means,) not the destination, (-ends). The only point in getting rid of the Taliban is if something better can be put in it's place.
...

Two things:

a.) Can an Admin correct the spelling of "Kilcullen" in this threads title - otherwise it will not come up on searches

b.) See here

Why I have not seen this before I do not know,...

Haven't got time to look at the link, but I pretty much despair once people start trying to put "ethical" frame frame works into these discussions. It leads you down a blind alley that utterly fails...

So remind me. Which Romans are we talking about here ? :D

OK, understood, but I would still be inclined to challenge the validity and usefulness of defining something called "insurgency" in a way that is supposed to add value and understanding - because it...

Really? I'm not a 100% sure but my guess is that most Legionnaires of the time probably spoke 2 or more languages, and probably had a wide range of other non-military skills. - but to your point,...